A Path To Believe In
by Ballistic947
Summary: Bruno Buccellati is a broken man. No matter how hard he tries to fight for what he believes in, all it seems to do is make things worse. But when he's transferred to Shujin Academy and finds a way to finally make a difference, he pounces on it and never looks back. Now with a crew of friends and family at his back, nothing is going to stop him from finding a path to believe in.


**CH.0: Prologue**

Paolo Buccellati's life was over. After almost ten long years of marriage his wife had grown tired of their small fishing village and wanted to see the world, seek fame and fortune, and amount to something more than just being the wife of a poor fisherman for the rest of her life. Hearing this from the woman he'd loved for over a decade had destroyed the man, but he couldn't find it in him to blame her. For the past couple of years he could see that his wife was becoming increasingly unhappy and distant to him, despite the love and affection she always showered their son Bruno in, so he shouldn't have been surprised when she eventually confessed her intentions of divorcing him and leaving the village for good. Maybe if he had tried to talk to her, to see if he could find some way to make her happy they wouldn't have to separate, but Paolo was never the most sociable man so he wasn't sure if it would've made much of a difference.

Paolo turned in his chair and glanced over to see his wife as she leaned down and came face to face with Bruno, no doubt preparing to deliver the news that mommy and daddy wouldn't be living together anymore, and that he'd have to choose which one he'd want to stay with. They'd both agreed to letting their son choose his guardian, but Paolo knew that it was no contest. He'd not been a bad father of course but he hadn't spent nearly as much time with the boy as his mother nor had he been as affectionate due to his rather stoic nature. The most he'd ever done was take the boy out on fishing trips to prepare him when he eventually inherited the family business, but even on those trips there was little pleasantries between them to the point where only the sounds of the waves and the cries of the black tailed gulls dominated the small fishing boat for upwards of thirty minutes at a time.

As his soon-to-be ex-wife continued to make her case as to why Bruno should choose her, Paolo sank back into his chair and went back to staring at nothing before letting out a dry, humorless chuckle. _'If there's one good thing that'll come out of this, it's that at least Bruno will get the chance at a good future instead of being doomed to the life of a poor fisherman.' _Paolo thought to himself. Even at seven years old he could see that the boy had a wealth of potential that would only grow as the boy aged. He knew that potential would be squandered here and had even considered sending him off to boarding school to try and get him a good education, but he barely earned enough to keep the lights on as is so unfortunately that idea had gone out the window.

"So, Bruno, you'll come with me won't you?" As Bruno's mother finished her case Paolo sunk even deeper into his chair and braced himself for his son's inevitable choice that would leave him well and truly alone with almost nothing left to live for. "I'm staying with dad." Both of the young boy's parents had virtually the same reaction, complete and utter shock.

Paolo got up from his chair and stared at his son with wide eyes of disbelief at what he had just heard, while his mother grasped the boy's shoulders asking him if he was sure about what he'd just said. After reaffirming his choice to stay with his father, tears began rolling down his mother's face as she hugged her son tightly, seemingly devastated by her son's decision. Meanwhile Paolo just continued to stare at the boy, still not fully believing what'd just happened. Bruno noticed his father's disbelieving gaze and gave the man a look of understanding along with a small, reassuring smile. Seeing this display of compassion from his son caused tears of his own to well up as he thanked God, Fate, and whoever or whatever else was listening for this second chance at life. _'I'll repay you for this Bruno,' _Paolo thought as he wiped away his tears _'So far I haven't been the best father, but that'll change.'_ He wiped his other eye free of tears as he gave the boy a smile of his own_ 'I'll make sure you have the best life I can give you, no matter what.'_

**And the wheels of fate did continue to revolve.**

It'd been over five whole years since that fateful day, and true to his promise, Paolo had spent the majority of it trying to get his son the best opportunities for life that he could give him. This unfortunately meant that he worked even more than he had previously, as instead of just being a fisherman he now offered to give rides on his boat to both tourists and fellow fisherman. This left the man with little free time, and worse, little time to spend with his son. Many nights the aging fisherman would stumble back to his house, overworked and on the verge of collapse, but instead of getting angry at the man for his lack of attention towards him, Bruno would instead make sure his father was well fed and comfortable by making late dinners for him, and throwing blankets over him when he inevitably passed out sitting in his chair, as he knew that the only reason for his father's borderline . Sometimes he would even prepare lunches for the fisherman, and it was in moments like those when Paolo questioned which one of them was the other's guardian. Nevertheless, both were truly grateful to have each other

This all changed on one fateful day, just before Paolo was about to set off on his daily voyage to his usual fishing spots, he heard footsteps thudding against the wood of the dock behind him. When he turned, he saw two unusual looking young men that looked more like common thugs then fishermen or tourists. "Hey, old guy." One of them spoke, flashing a rather sleezy and obviously fake smile"You're Paolo Buccellati, right?" the older man eyed them with a hint of suspicion but kept his face neutral. "Yes, I am, do you two need a ride?" the sleezy looking man chuckled "Yeah, we need to go to the island about a kilometer north of here, planning on casting some lines out there." He gestured to the bag strapped to his shoulder that held his fishing pole. Paolo raised an eyebrow at this "That place isn't very good for fishing you know, if you want I can take you somewhere mu-" He was cut off by the other man, who responded in a harsh impatient manner "Look just shut up and take us man, we're paying you so just shut up and take us where we want to go alright?" His companion gave him a harsh glare for a split second before looking back at Paolo and putting his fake smile back on again. "Forgive this guy, someone must've pissed in his tea this morning, but he has a point. We're shelling out a fair chunk of change so where we want to go doesn't really matter does it pops?" Paolo was even more suspicious of them now, and even contemplated rejecting them outright, but then he thought about Bruno, and how he needed every dollar he could take if he wanted his son to get the education and opportunities he needed. After a few moments of silence and contemplation, Paolo let out a small sigh "Alright," he said, "let's head out."

Vincent Ricci was a fairly experienced detective, he'd been on the force for most of his adult life and had seen his fair share of crazy shit, but this was one of the more unbelievable cases he'd ever been assigned to. When he arrived at the hospital to assess the condition of the victim/witness of a drug-related shooting that'd happened just hours earlier he was extremely surprised when a nurse informed him that the victim had been shot seven times, and even more shocked when told that he was most likely going to live. Vincent chuckled to himself _'Maybe this is one of those miracles my priest told me about as a kid' _he quickly finished up his conversation with the nurse and moved on towards questioning his secondary witness, the twelve-year-old boy. He didn't thinkhe'd get much information as the boy hadn't been on the ship when the shooting took place, but he had to be thorough and any bit of info would be a tremendous asset.

He made his way over towards the boy, who was sitting on the bench right next to the doors that lead to the operating room with his head in his hands and a distraught look in his eyes. _'Poor kid,' _Vince thought _'probably been sitting there for at least an hour or two uncertain whether or not his dad's gonna pull through.' _The detective cleared his throat and the boy looked wearily up at him. "Good evening, are you Bruno?" The kid nodded weakly "Your father apparently witnessed a drug deal, we found this at the scene." He held out a small bag filled with an illicit white powder. "Whoever did this to him probably thought he would go to the police and tried to silence him so he wouldn't talk." The boy's eyes widened a bit at the sight of the powder before narrowing into a deadly, sharp glare and finally reverting to their bleak state. The detective gave the boy a wary look as a drip of cold sweat made its way down the side of his face. _'That look in his eyes… it was only there for a second but there's no doubt in my mind that was a look of pure murderous intent.'_ "Is my dad going to make it?" Bruno asked, snapping the man out of his thoughts "Y-yes, he's expected to pull through. Your father's remarkably lucky as the ship that found him had the medical supplies needed to stabilize him before he got to the hospital." The detective answered. The boy's face brightened a bit at the news, and he went back to staring at the emergency room doors while the detective excused himself, giving Bruno a wary look before leaving him to his devices. _'He's not even a teenager yet, but I can already tell that kid's dangerous.' _Vince thought to himself _'Frankly, if whatever two-bit drug pusher did this crossed paths with that kid,' _the detective let out a dry chuckle,_ 'my moneys on the kid.' _

That night, just before the clock struck two in the morning, the window leading into Paolo Buccellati's room ever so slowly began to creak open. Once it'd been sufficiently opened, two shadowy figures crept in, their knives glinting in the pale moonlight. One figure nodded at the other before moving to the bed where the wounded man slept, while his partner stood guard by the window, searching for anyone who might've witnessed their breaking and entering. The figure making it's way towards the bed mumbled obscenities to its-self, lamenting the fact that it had to sneak through a hospital in the middle of the night and likely wouldn't get any sleep until the asscrack of dawn all to put down a fisherman who didn't seem to know how to just fucking lay down and die. Just before he was about to plunge his knife deep into the throat of the unconscious man, as if responding to his own, a knife shot out from under the bed and stopped just short of his own neck, the figure looked down in shock and met the gaze of a boy, who looked up at him with a calm face, and murder in his eyes.

Bruno stared up at the man who dared try to murder his father not once, but twice. He pushed his knife deeper into his throat and the man jumped back a bit in shock before stuttering out a sentence "W-Who the fuck are you!? The hell's a fucking kid doing here!?" Bruno slowly crept out of the bed, keeping his knife firmly pressed to the man's throat, even drawing out a thin line of blood from where the point touched skin. "The fuck are you doing?! Just take the knife from him already!" His partner let out. The man at knife point gave his college a glare and would've replied had Bruno not taken advantage of the fact that the man's eyes were off him and swiftly climbed onto his back before plunging his dagger deep into his chest and cutting up all the way to his throat before the man could even choke out a word. As the man's lifeless body fell to the floor his partner just stared at Bruno, barely reacting as the boy sprinted over to him and stabbed his knife deep into his eye, going all the way down to the handle and no doubt cutting apart his brain. Bruno left his knife in its new sheath as the man's body also fell to the floor lifelessly.

Bruno took a deep breath as he processed what had just happened and what he just did, before a voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "B-Bruno?" His eyes widened as he looked over to his father, and saw him shakily rise to his feet, staring in horror at the bodies that now occupied his room. "Dad!" Bruno shouted as he ran to his father, "You should be resting," Bruno pushed him back down onto the hospital bed, "don't worry, I'll protect you." Paolo stared at his son in disbelief before quietly speaking "Bruno, **what did you do?**" Bruno flinched at the potent but quiet anger that seeped out of his father's words and into him. His father had been stern with him a couple of times in the past, but never to this extent. "I was jus-" "I can see what you did," Paolo interrupted "but do you know **what** you just did?" Bruno looked a bit confused, and at that Paolo's malice softened as it seemed that his son genuinely didn't understand the gravity of his actions. "These men were not just random thugs, with the type of gear and material they worked with they almost certainly were part of some gang." Paolo explained. "And now that we've killed two of their own, they'll most likely hunt us down and kill us in exchange." Realization dawned on Bruno's face as he realized what he'd just gotten them into.

After a minute or two of silence, Bruno spoke up "What do we do now?" Paolo sighed, "I don't know." _'All these years, all the work we've done, all the money we've saved up, all of it is meaningless now' _he thought in despair as he cradled his head in his hands. _'Unless…'_ Paolo began formulating a plan that would maybe get them out of this. It would cost them all their funds, require them to drastically change their lives, and after it all it might not even work, but it was the only thing that Paolo could think of. With that, he rose up from the bed, and headed to the door. His newly closed gunshot wounds ached and threatened to reopen, but he pushed past them with a newfound resolve. "Dad! Where are you going?" Bruno said in a panic "Your wounds haven't healed yet!" Paolo grunted "That doesn't matter, we don't have time for them to heal, we need to leave now." "Where are we going? Home?" Bruno asked as he followed his father out the door and into the hallway. "That's not our home anymore Bruno, we're going someplace else." "But where?!" Bruno asked, still deeply confused. "Someplace far, far away from here." His father replied, as he looked down at his boy _'You're still going to have the best life I can give you Bruno,' _His eyes looked forward, steeled by resolve and a tiny bit of hope _'no matter what.'_

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**AN: Alright so that's the prologue out of the way. I've had the idea for this story kicking around in my head for a good long while now, but it's really nice to get it started properly. This is the first thing I've written something publicly in a long ass time so I might not be at the top of my game but personally I think I did alright. Of course if you have any questions, comments, criticisms, or just want to say you like it I encourage you to leave a review as this story will primarily serve as something to hone my writing and give me experience before I try and get anything published so any and all reviews are appreciated. I'll try to keep the chapters under 10,000 words long because it'd probably be a bit daunting for both me and the reader if every chapter was the size of a small novella but sometimes when I get in the "Zone" I might have to break that promise. I'll also try to update at least once every month or so, though depending on RL situations I might not make that deadline every time, but that's generally the schedule I'll try and keep. Anyway, that about does it for this chapter and I'll see you all next time. **


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